Blog Post #1: Democracy & Education

• 10 years ago
• Posted in:Assignment 1: 3 Posts
• 2
• Author: anita heitz
• Tags: Post 1

Throughout his article Willinsky (2002) dissects John Dewey’s thoughts on democracy and how it relates to education. The significant connection between education and politics came to a new light for me. I don’t think that many teachers, especially those of us in BC who have recently sat on the picket lines for 5 weeks, can deny that education, policy and practice are very closely related to politics. When we have a government and policy makes that care more about the bottom line than providing our students, the future leaders of our country, with a good quality education we run the risk of destroying democracy itself. Democracy reaches much further than politics. This was the point that Dewey himself brought up (Willinsky, 2002). A democratic society requires an educated public, on that can engage in an informed discussion and make informed decisions (Willinsky, 2002). According to Dewey’s theory, democracy will help people live together in a more harmonious way. It is not that democracy is thought to solve all problems, built is through open discussion and contemplation that we can understand someone else’s viewpoint thereby combating ignorance (Willinsky, 2002).
Willinsky (2002) also believes that education is an essential part of a democratic society and believes that educational research should be available to all because it can benefit the general pubic. If we become a more educated society we become more democratic in many ways. Educational research allows teachers to engage in better practice (Willinsky, 2002). Further, if educational research was made free publically we could pass our findings to other societies who may not be able to afford the research that we can fund. In turn we could also benefit greatly from the practices from other cultures that have a different approach to education than we currently do (Willinsky, 2002).
Research improves and informs education. We can learn what we are missing and where we need to improve our educational practice so that future generations will continue to live in a democratic society. The prevalence of the Internet is allowing the sharing of research to happen on a much larger scale than ever before in history (Willinsky, 2002). Willinsky (2002) does make a very good point in terms of how the Internet is actually potentially infringing on democracy. With search engines tailoring searches to bring up more of the same type of information repeated searches keep bringing up the same type of information. In the past people received their news from the news or newspapers where they were exposed to more than one viewpoint and a variety of stories, not only ones that piqued their interest. When we are exposed to more than one viewpoint, and a broader variety of stories we are more likely to be open minded. When we simply see the same type of information over and over again, it solidifies our viewpoint making us less likely to be open to other ideas. We need to be exposed to new ideas and have discussions with people of opposing opinions in order to retain a democratic society. Exposure to research, education or otherwise, will allow us to do this (Willinsky, 2002).
If we venture back to the idea of democracy in terms of politics, specifically to the idea of voting, it is somewhat ironic that in spite of the fact that democracy requires an educated public, those who are less educated are actually the ones who are most actively involved in exercising their democratic right to vote (Willinsky, 2002). This is a dangerous thing as the government voted in has so much power over things like our natural resources, economy and education itself. Are we coming to the point to where we will no longer be educated enough to be a truly democratic society, or are we already possibly well on our way here already?